


Silver Linings

by pr0nz69



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bromance, Complicated Relationships, Friendship, Gen, Mind Games, Sleepovers, Spoilers, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr0nz69/pseuds/pr0nz69
Summary: Ren watches his and Akechi’s sprites dissolve into pixels out of the corner of his eye. Akechi’s rubbing his neck.“Ah, I’m sorry. After all my talk, I really let us down, didn’t I?”Ren doesn’t answer. Akechi has his controller on his lap, thumb resting limp over the joystick. Just a moment ago, as he prepared to take the shot, his fingers left the controller entirely.Akechi sabotaged them.—The boys have a sleepover to suss out the motives of their newest recruit.





	Silver Linings

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for “Starlight,” the Persona 5 sleepover zine! Since fluff and I aren’t really seeing each other, I naturally had to go the slightly angsty, psychological warfare route because drama and tension are delicious! <3

“Well, this is rather quaint,” are Akechi’s first cheerful words as he mounts the landing to Leblanc’s attic-cum-bedroom.

Ren says nothing as he follows him up the stairs, but Ryuji, still sore about the plan and their circumstances in general, pushes past the both of them a little too aggressively to be natural, even for him.

“Yo, you makin’ fun of him?” The challenge is latent in his voice as he tosses his bedroll closest to Ren’s bed as if  _ his _ plan is to guard him through the night.

“Ryuji,” Ren warns.

“Let him,” Morgana mutters under his breath as he slips from Ren’s bag and hops up to his usual spot on the table.

But Akechi only smiles as he sets his own bag in the far corner by the stairs. “Not at all. It’s certainly a far cry from juvenile detention.”

Ryuji’s jaw drops. Ren narrows his eyes. Even Yusuke pauses from where he’s started meticulously arranging his futon.

“It is,” Ren says neutrally.

Futaba, ironically enough, was the one to propose this—a group bonding activity to help break the ice with their newest, though reluctantly admitted, teammate. Of course, she’d had her motivations.

“Intel! While I’m working on the app, we need to gather more intel on the weirdo detective prince! And look, I bet he’ll lower his guard if it’s just you boys, what with Mona being a cat, Ryuji being dumb, and Yusuke being—well,  _ Yusuke _ .”

When they brought it up at the next meeting, Ann had suggested a sleepover—“to keep it light and casual,” she’d said. To all of their initial surprise, Akechi had needed little encouragement to accept their invitation, taking to the idea warmly if not bashfully.

“I’ve never been to a sleepover before,” he’d said rather shyly, “but it sounds quite fun. Thank you for inviting me.”

It almost made Ren want to trust him then and there in spite of his suspicions. There’s an innocent, perhaps deceptive charm to Akechi that’s nevertheless magnetizing—hypnotic, even.

An awkward silence hangs between them now, though.

“Pardon me,” Akechi says, looking from Morgana to Ryuji to Ren. “That didn’t come out at all how I meant it to.”

That breaks the tension like glass splintering outward.

“It  _ isn’t _ funny!” Morgana growls, tail whipping back and forth.” You don’t know the half of what he’s had to go through!”

“You really aren’t one of us at all,” Ryuji bites out. “I knew this was gonna be a waste of time.”

“Indeed,” Yusuke chimes in, although his eye’s been caught by an art history book on Sojiro’s shelf, and he doesn’t appear to be paying particular attention.

“I  _ am _ sorry,” Akechi says. “My jokes tend to go over well or not at all.”

Ryuji opens his mouth, but Ren speaks before he can argue. “It’s alright. We’re here to get to know each other as a team. If we’re going to save Nijima-san, we must do it united—just like all of our other jobs.”

Ryuji shuts his mouth.

“He’s right,” Morgana says. He shakes his head a few times as if to clear away the distaste, then jumps onto Ren’s shoulder. “Gentlemen,” he declares, “let us call a truce for now as we unite as phantom thieves!”

Akechi rests his chin in his hand and tilts his head. “Phantom thieves, huh?” He quietly laughs. “To think that I, a detective working this case, would actually end up involved myself…”

Ryuji frowns. “You’d better mean it about not rattin’ us out.”

“As much as this case means to me, Sae-san’s safety is infinitely more important. Besides that, I’m a persona-user now. Since I understand the Phantom Thieves’ methods, it would be inappropriate for me to continue pursuing this case.”

_ Now _ . The word sticks in Ren’s head. Akechi might be lying. They’ve discussed the possibility. He’s definitely been to the Metaverse long before he claims—the TV station incident proves that. But why would he lie? None of the reasons Ren can think of are good.

_ But Akechi doesn’t wear a black mask. _ It’s the one thing Ren clings to now to try and prove the innocence of the one person he has no reason to trust.

He turns slightly to find Akechi watching him. Akechi smiles and looks away.

“If that’s settled, what shall we do first?” Yusuke asks. “Might I propose a quiet game of koi koi to break the ice?”

Ryuji groans. “We ain’t playin’ hanafuda like geezers! ’Sides, koi koi is only for two players.”

“I want to prove my bravery in a test of courage!” Morgana cries.

“I’m  _ not _ getting bagged for trespassing,” Ren says. “Or causing any unnecessary trouble for Sojiro-san.”

Morgana droops. “Oh, right. Hey, Ryuji, what do you think you’re doing?”

Ryuji’s on his knees by the TV, fiddling with the cables of the old GameStation console. “I found my controllers and brought ’em over. I’ve been dyin’ to play some  _ Star Forneus _ multiplayer!”

“What? What gives?” Morgana yowls, abandoning Ren’s shoulder for the floor. “I can’t play with these paws!”

“Well, you can’t do much anyway, can you, cat?”

“What did you say? And I’m  _ not _ a cat!”

“You can be my trigger button controller,” Ren suggests.

“Hmph,” Morgana says, but he seems to realize that arguing now is pointless.

“All set up!” Ryuji says, and they gather on the floor around the TV. Ryuji slides next to Ren and jabs him with his elbow. “This guy’s on my team for the two-vee-two!”

“Actually, I was going to ask him to team up with me,” Akechi says, scooting to the other side of Ren. “Since I haven’t played this game before, it would be an unfair advantage for the two best players to team up, don’t you think?”

“Wait, are you sayin’ I have to pair up with  _ Yusuke _ ?”

“How rude,” Yusuke sniffs. “I have an eye for small details, so I think I’ll be quite good at spotting the pixels in this game.”

“Dude, that’s  _ not _ how this works!”

“If we’re all in agreement,” Ren says over Ryuji’s protestations, “then let’s start.”

Ryuji grumbles under his breath but switches the console on anyway.

“Thank you, Ren-kun,” Akechi whispers. Ren glances at him, but he’s already focused on the TV as the  _ Star Forneus _ start screen begins to play.

For someone who “hasn’t played this game before,” Akechi is remarkably adept at it. The first round goes to him and Ren, to everyone’s surprise.

“I think we’ve been hustled,” Ryuji says, glaring at Akechi.

“Not at all,” he laughs. “It seems I just have a knack for this.”

Ryuji rounds on Yusuke. “Get your shit together, man! We can’t let ’em wipe the floor with us like this!”

“These controllers are far from ergonomic, which will make extended play difficult…”

“The hell? C’mon, let’s just beat the shit outta them! And quit gettin’ stuck behind all that space shit!”

“This is  _ boring _ ,” Morgana says, and he curls up in Ren’s lap to sleep.

“I must admit, I find it quite thrilling,” Akechi says to Ren as they start up another round. “It’s unexpectedly more a game of wits than skill, wouldn’t you say? Reading your opponent is crucial, just like in an investigation.”

Ren offers up a crooked smile. “Don’t get a big head over it. It doesn’t take much to read Ryuji.”

“I heard that!”

“Ryuji! Pay attention! You ran right into them!”

“Aww, shit!”

The victory trill plays over Ren’s and Akechi’s sprites while Ryuji’s and Yusuke’s disintegrate in the background.

“Well done, partner,” Akechi says, holding up his hand.

Ren’s lips twitch. “Yeah.” He clasps Akechi’s hand and squeezes. It feels unexpectedly small and warm in his, and it’s with a strange sort of disconnect that he remembers Akechi is  _ human _ . No matter what he’s hiding, no matter what his true objective may be, that fact won’t change. He’s human, and that means he’s fallible, imperfect, vulnerable…

They start up a new round.

“Double or nothing,” Ryuji says.

With so much at stake, the banter slows and then stops completely. Ryuji leans forward on his knees, so focused he hardly blinks. Even Yusuke has his full attention on the screen, a concerned crease deepening between his brows as the timer ticks lower. The score bounces back and forth between the teams until the countdown reaches the single digits. Nine seconds. They’re tied until Ryuji snipes Ren from between two conveniently spawned planets.

“Ha! Gotcha!”

Ren sets down his controller; he won’t respawn before time runs out.

Seven seconds. Ryuji doesn’t retreat fast enough; Akechi shoots him through the same two planets.

“Dammit,  _ no _ !”

Five seconds. Akechi’s and Yusuke’s sprites flit across the screen, neither daring to move in closer. Three seconds. Yusuke chokes, trapping himself behind an asteroid. Two seconds. Akechi has a perfect shot, and his reflexes have already proven faster. One second—

“Aww,  _ hell _ yeah! You go, Yusuke!”

Ren watches his and Akechi’s sprites dissolve into pixels out of the corner of his eye. Akechi’s rubbing his neck.

“Ah, I’m sorry. After all my talk, I really let us down, didn’t I?”

Ren doesn’t answer. Akechi has his controller on his lap, thumb resting limp over the joystick. Just a moment ago, as he prepared to take the shot, his fingers left the controller entirely.

Akechi sabotaged them.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice soft and sleek as velvet. A small smile creeps to his lips as if unconsciously.

“Nothing at all,” Ren says.

A power play—Ryuji and Yusuke didn’t notice, but Akechi is showing them just how much power he has over them. And he wants Ren to know.

_ I can end you at any time. _

Ryuji sits back, stretching his arms in the air. “Man, I’m starvin’ now! C’mon, Yusuke! Let’s get changed into our PJs and break out the celebratory cup noodles!”

“Actually, I would prefer miso soup…”

Ryuji and Yusuke wander off downstairs while Ren reaches forward to turn the console off, disturbing Morgana from his nap.

“Who won?” he asks groggily.

“Ryuji and Yusuke, on a double-or-nothing technicality.”

Morgana grimaces.

“I’m mostly to blame for that,” Akechi adds ruefully.

Ren lays a hand over his shoulder. “That’s right. We won the first two rounds on a fluke. It turns out Akechi’s really no good after all.”

Ren tightens his fingers, digging in a little with his nails.  _ Human. He’s just a human. _ Akechi looks at him, disarmed for a moment, before relaxing into a smile.

“Well, that’s no surprise,” Morgana says with a yawn. He eases himself off Ren’s lap and into a high-backed stretch. “Where’d the other two go, anyway?”

Ren nods toward the stairs. “Making cup noodles. Let’s join them.”

The three of them traipse down the stairs to find Ryuji wrestling with the tea kettle.

“Oh, there you are. Hey, if we’re gonna be up all night, why don’t you make us some coffee? This guy’s coffee is the best,” he adds, nudging Ren.

“Well, Boss’s coffee is delicious, so that’s no surprise,” Akechi says. “Ren-kun learned from the best. I’m looking forward to trying it.”

Ren has the fleeting, terrifying thought of putting poison in Akechi’s cup.

_ I can end you, too. _

“You sure you trust me not to put anything weird in it?” he asks, only partially teasing as he throws on an apron.

Akechi chuckles. “I’d almost like to see you try.”

A quarter of an hour later, they return to the attic changed into their pajamas and laden down with noodles, coffee, and whatever else Ryuji managed to dig up from around the kitchen—chips, bottles of water, leftover pizza, day-old curry from the fridge, a mysterious box of pocky from time unknown. They spread it all out on the table by the stairs, and that’s when Ryuji discovers the nondescript black notebook.

“What’s this?” he asks, picking it up.

Ren makes the impetuous mistake of lunging for it. Ryuji twists out of the way.

“Hold up, man! You hidin’ this from us?” His momentary confusion quickly morphs into satisfied amusement. “Aww, no way... You keep a diary?”

“No,” Ren says stiffly, recomposing himself. “That’s nothing interesting, so hand it over.”

“Sayin’ that just makes me wanna look even more, y’know?”

“Hey, put that back!” Morgana cries, realizing what it is.

“Ryuji!” Yusuke says sternly. “That is an invasion of his privacy! Return it to him at once!”

“Although,” Akechi says, looking straight at Ren with a strange little half-smirk that the others can’t see, “I must admit that I  _ am _ curious.”

This sends Ryuji over the edge. “See? See? Even the detective prince wants to know which girls you’re crushin’ on! Damn, I bet it’s that shogi babe! Let’s find out!” He opens the book to a random page. “Let’s see... ‘Went to school for the last day of midterms... Took the train straight home. Greeted Sojiro-san and retired to my room for the night.’ The hell is this?”

He turns to the beginning of the book. “‘Second day in Yongen-Jaya. Sakura-san took me to the school today. After we got back to the cafe, I went to the attic for the night.’” Ryuji frowns. “Uh, dude, why’re you writin’ down your daily activities and shit?” He flips through the book. “ _ Every day _ is like this!”

“Ryuji!” Morgana leaps up and swats the book from his hands. “What’s  _ wrong _ with you? You can’t just go through people’s private things!”

Ren crouches and retrieves the book. “It’s not like I’ve been deliberately hiding it from you. It’s what you said—a journal of my daily activities that I have to keep as a condition of my probation.” His fingers tighten over the spine. “To make sure I’m not causing any  _ other _ trouble.”

“Ren,” Ryuji says, looking uncharacteristically ashamed. “Dude, I—I’m sorry—I didn’t—you never said anything about this!” He clenches his fists around the hem of his tank top, trying to keep them from shaking. “But this—it’s total  _ bullshit _ ! You didn’t even  _ do _ anything, but they’re treating you like—like you’re an actual criminal or some shit! I can’t  _ stand _ that!"

“Yes, what disgusting injustice,” Yusuke says, eyes hard. “I can scarcely tolerate it. They are rubbing salt in the wound with such a directive, and I am certain that those who saw to your arrest and trial know it.”

“Injustice?” Akechi repeats, and perhaps for the first time, he appears genuinely curious and unrehearsed. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. I heard the rumors that you have a criminal record for assault, of course, but I never inquired about your situation because I didn’t want to pry.”

Ryuji drops his hem and thrusts out his arms. “It’s all a load of shit and trumped up charges! He was tryin’ to save a lady gettin’ attacked by some shithead, and then that shithead sued for assault when he fell on his own drunk ass! Thanks to that, this guy got convicted of an assault he never even committed and shipped out here on probation! Isn’t that the same kind of ‘justice’ you shitty police types love so much?”

Akechi falters. “That’s...  _ No _ … That isn’t  _ justice _ . It can’t be true…”

Ren squeezes the book harder. “It’s true. That man had a bad day when he couldn’t get what he wanted—and so in return, he  _ ruined  _ my life.”

He feels anger like hot tar lapping at him, burning in his stomach, his chest, his throat. It’s the same anger that first summoned Arsène to him—the righteous anger of rebellion.

Akechi is quiet for several moments. “I didn’t know,” he says at last. “I didn’t know you were falsely accused.”

“It’s why I became a phantom thief.” Ren sets the book back on the table, tracing his index finger along the cover. “People like him deserve worse than this country’s false justice. I’ll make him hurt—but in the end, it will all be of his own doing. I’ll crush him under the weight of his own sins.” He slams his hand down on the book and curls his fingers into his palm, nails biting skin. “Because of him, I was branded a criminal. Because of him, I lost everything. My own parents abandoned me.”

“Parents,” Akechi says, oddly dreamlike. “Yes... I can understand that quite well…”

There’s a vulnerable sort of anger in his own eyes, and Ren thinks it’s the most honest he’s ever seen him, stripped of all walls and pretenses. There’s something there, too, something rotting and long dead. Ren wants to press him a little harder, tease a little more information out of him. It’s what this whole sleepover is for, but…

But he sees something of himself there, too—a little rot of his own.

He sighs, sinking back against the railing until he’s sitting on the floor. “It doesn’t really matter now when there’s no changing it. But I made a vow that going forward, I would change. I’ll fight against corruption and show this world the justice we’ve found as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.”

“You’ll... change?” Akechi asks, speaking the words as if he’s tasting them on his lips for the first time. “Is that... really possible?”

_ What is it? What’s  _ there _? _

“Akechi, you—”

Ren starts when Ryuji slides down next to him, swinging his arm around his shoulders and ruffling his hair.

“I s’pose we gotta thank that bastard for one thing, though.”

“Yes, I agree.” Yusuke sits at Ren’s other side, resting a hand on his shoulder.

Morgana crawls into his lap. “You did save me, after all. Without you, I…”

“I can’t remember what I was going to say,” Ren says, meaning to chastise them, but he can’t help it—he starts to laugh.

“Eh, I doubt it was important,” Ryuji says with a shrug. “You two were gettin’ all gloomy there for a while. It was really killin’ the mood. But”—he sobers somewhat—“really, man. I mean it. I’m glad I got to meet you. And everyone.”

“As am I.”

“Don’t forget me!”

Ren leans back against the railing, tipping his head up. “I guess it’s true that there’s a silver lining to every cloud. I don’t regret anything I’ve done up to this point—saving that woman, getting arrested, moving out here, becoming a phantom thief, meeting everyone. You guys are the best things to come out of the worst thing to ever happen to me.”

Ryuji, to Ren’s amusement, blushes. “Geez, dude, don’t go all sappy now!”

Ren glances up at Akechi, who’s holding the back of his neck looking tense and troubled. “You, too,” he says. “I’m glad I met you.”

But Akechi shakes his head. “I misjudged you,” he says while the others start to dig in to the food. “I’m sorry. I truly thought... that you had everything in life.”

“That should be my line, Mr. Detective Prince.”

Something is definitely up with Akechi, and he was close tonight to pulling some of it out of him. But Akechi’s laughing now and playing it off, and the mask is up and fixed in place again. And somehow, Ren already knows that he’s going to have his heart broken, but it still doesn’t keep him from grabbing Akechi by the arm and bringing him back to the rest of the group to act like he truly is one of them.

He needs to look for those silver linings, after all.


End file.
